Contents

Query Options and In-memory Querying

JPA defines standard query hints for configuring how a query interacts with the shared persistence unit cache (L2). EclipseLink also provides some additional query hints for configuring the cache usage.

Entities can be accessed through JPA using either find() or queries. find() will first check the persistence context cache (L1) for the Id, if the object is not found it will check the shared persistence unit cache (L2), if the object is still not found it will access the database. By default all queries will access the database, unless querying by Id or by cache indexed fields. Once the query retrieves the rows from the database, it will resolve each row with the cache. If the object is already in the cache, then the row will be discarded, and the object will be used. If the object is not in the shared cache, then it will be built from the row and put into the shared cache. A copy will also be put in the persistence context cache and returned as the query result.

This is the general process, but it differs if the transaction is dirty. If the transaction is diry then the shared persistence unit cache will be ignored and objects will be built directly into the persistence context cache.